During years of resource boom, the Sask. Party government failed to improve overall graduation rates one bit – and with the Sask. Party scrapping the mid-year funding deal for schools, the NDP says the challenge will get tougher.

In a Public Accounts Committee meeting at the legislature on Wednesday, officials revealed that Sask. Party promises to improve the province’s 74.8 per cent high school graduation rate has not been kept. In fact, overall graduation rates haven’t budged.

“To go in the wrong direction so fast that the wait list nearly doubles in just months is absolutely alarming. At this rate, progress on surgical waits will be quickly wiped out.”

At the end of October, 3,195 patients on the wait list had waited longer than three months for surgery, compared to 1,686 patients at the end of March. The change is a 67 per cent increase in Saskatoon, and a whopping 145 per cent jump in Regina. The November and December figures aren’t available yet, but slow-downs in the number of surgeries performed in those months were planned, according to internal health region documents.

The NDP supports a reasonable, phased-in expansion of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) so that Saskatchewan families have more security in retirement.

The potential expansion of the CPP is being discussed by Canada’s finance ministers in Ottawa today, and Saskatchewan is, again, the outlier. The Sask. Party opposes phasing in modest growth in retirement payments.